


I Am Not Your Faith

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Episode: s10e14 The Executioner's Song, First Blade, Gen, Mark of Cain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the darkness, only faith can guide you...</p><p>
  <em>Dean could smell it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That was new. Smelling fear. The air was rank with it. They were all afraid—afraid of him—for different reasons.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Not Your Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this one kept edging sideways on me. It was really intended to be a Destiel piece, as I'm making an attempt to be an equal opportunity shipper, but it just didn't work out. So, while there are hints of Cas and Dean, it's more in desperation of the moment than anything else, and when all is said and done, Sam is still the one for Dean. 
> 
> Sorry Destiel shippers! I'll make another go of it later, though. Promise.

Crowley was leaning back. He was afraid.

Dean could smell it.

That was new. Smelling fear. The air was rank with it. They were all afraid—afraid of him—for different reasons.

Crowley because the blade in Dean’s hand—the blade still pointed at Crowley—was the only thing in the room at the moment that could kill him, and it was in the hands of a man who had more reason than most to do just that.

Cas was afraid because Dean had asked him to kill him if things went sideways, if Dean got out of control, and he’d never been closer to it than he was in this moment. But Cas was powerless, with no weapon that could take him down save the one in Dean’s own hand, and it only worked if a bearer of the Mark was holding it.

Sam. Sam was afraid for simpler reasons, for much less complicated reasons. _A_ reason. If Dean failed, if he couldn’t hang on, then Sam lost his brother, and himself by default. Because Sam’s world had become very narrow over the years, and the tight fitting walls of it were the breadth of Dean’s shoulders and back and that was enough for Sam.

Dean hefted the blade, turned it over in his hand. It was singing to him, drugging him with the heady promise of blood. He breathed in deep, the rancid stench of fear drowning that song just long enough that he could hand it over…to Cas.

Cas’ trembling fingers wrapped around the hilt. He no more wanted to touch it than he wanted to try its effectiveness on its owner, but he recognized Dean’s effort, the need to have it away from him, safe but available, in case they ever needed to put him down in the same way he had just done Cain.

Cas eased away, tucking the blade out of sight and out of reach. 

Crowley vanished.

Dean teetered, the power of the blade no longer acting on his system, no longer driving him forward like some hyper-rush of adrenaline, and then he swayed.

And then he was in Sam’s arms.

“You did it, Dean,” Sam murmured, holding him tight, holding him up. “You did it.”

Like it was all over. Like the war had been won.

Sam believed in his brother. He had faith. Always had. His voice now was like it had been all those years ago when Dean had come home from his first hunt, bloody, smelling of gunpowder and guts, and running so high on adrenaline that it was eating out his stomach—made him vomit twice while Sam held his trembling shoulders, whispering to him, ‘You did it, Dean. You killed it’—or maybe that was the fear. The fear that now all those things knew _he_ could kill them, too, and now he was a walking target. The fear that one day they would come to his doorstep and he wouldn’t be strong enough, he wouldn’t be able to stop them.

They’d made it past the the doorstep. They were in the house now.

 _What did I do, Sammy?_ What _did I do? Because it feels like the battle’s just begun._

_——-_

Sleep for four days, he’d said. He wished he could sleep for four decades, four centuries, millennia down the road until, when he finally woke up, the earth was empty and dead and time and fate had taken hold of the skein of Sam’s life and Cas’ and unwound them in due time, not to be cut short by the monster living in Dean’s blood.

“Dean?”

_And then you’ll kill the angel, Castiel…_

Dean didn’t flinch. He couldn’t. It wasn’t in him anymore. He’d heard Cas down the hall. He’d heard his brother’s hushed confession and knew that they both knew it was only a matter of time.

Cas came in the room, bringing the fear with him, though he needn’t have. There was no weapon within easy reach. Dean had made sure of that, and he wasn’t likely to get far trying to kill an angel with his bare hands, even if that would have satisfied, and it wouldn’t have. The Mark was specific. It wanted blood, not just death.

_Now that—that I suspect would hurt something awful._

Cas stood for a moment, listless and uncertain in front of Dean. Dean looked up.

Cas’ eyes were still blue, and Dean was glad of that. The rest of the world was washed out and fading. But that blue…he could hang on to that blue.

“Cas….”

It was a helpless sound, rough and ruined and begging—for what he didn’t know—and Cas’ hand twitched at it. His whole body leaned toward Dean.

Dean’s fingers curled against his denim clad thighs, fisting tight. “I don’t want to be this, Cas. I don’t want to hurt…you, to hurt Sam. I don’t want to become _him,_ but….”

Dean could already feel his insides dying a little at a time, succumbing to the sickness of the Mark.

Cas came a step closer. “You have come this far, Dean.”

“But how much farther can I go?” Dean swallowed, rubbing his tense, white knuckles into his thighs again and again—a nervous movement to try and bleed off the stirring violence in his gut that would not abate. “And if I do, how much damage do I do? Who gets hurt? Who…dies?”

“Dean….” One more step closer. Cas was in Dean’s space now, close enough to reach, to touch.

When they had first met, face to face in that warehouse years ago, Cas had been following orders: ‘Save Dean Winchester. At all costs.’

The costs had been high. Dean was saved. But he had fought a battle ever since, against his own darkness, his own internal flaws, and the Mark was magnifying all that now, and Dean felt he was becoming powerless against it.

What Dean did not know, could not remember as clearly as he should, was how hard he fought in Hell, how long he resisted Alistair. Dean’s memory was skewed because all he knew was that he had broken in the end, both himself and the first seal. He did not remember that even after he crumbled, every fiber of his being revolted against what he was doing. He never lost his humanity. He never stopped hearing the screams for mercy. His self-hatred grew with every cut, every slash, every mutilated soul he pillaged with skewer and knife and hook at Alistair’s instruction. In the end, _that_ was what truly broke him, that he would never give up his human compassion. He may have sold his soul, but he could never let it go.

The fight was still going on. The stakes were higher and more personal now, and Cas had to convince him that he could succeed, that he had faced this sort of challenge before, and he could do it again. He could do it now. 

Cas got down on his knees, hovered his hands over Dean’s for a fraction of a second before he took hold, enveloping them, stilling them. He turned them over slowly, rubbing the pads of his thumbs along the bloodless knuckles, coaxing them open until he could press into the center of Dean’s palms, rubbing broader and broader circles. Dean’s breath hitched, stuttered, and his whole body trembled when Cas turned his face up, eyes piercing and powerful, alive with the unearthly glow of his Grace.

Once, Castiel had saved Dean Winchester on the orders of a higher power. Now, he would save Dean because he believed in him, because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world—that humankind—was better off with a man like him alive and fighting.

And he would save him…because he loved him.

It was an emotion years in the making and took his very nearly destroying the world, becoming human, and finally the loss of his Grace, to create the mold, and when the final form was cast it came in the shape of Dean Winchester.

“Cas….”

It was a whisper, a breath of hope so acute in the sound it cut Cas to his very core. He let his Grace bubble up inside him, build like a geyser under the pressure, waiting to fountain up. He moved his hands up Dean’s forearms, thumbs still moving in purposeful circles until his left brushed at the Mark.

It was hot to the touch, glowing sickly, alive now in the knowledge that it had killed its maker. First Blade had shed first blood, and the thirst would only intensify from now on. No amount of heavenly Grace could counteract it. Even the hand of God himself may be powerless against it, though it hardly mattered as God was no longer in any of their equations. 

“Cas, don’t,” Dean croaked roughly.

He recognized the power radiating in Cas’ hands, it had held the demon in him in check, saved his life when Sam had been teetering on the brink of having to kill or be killed. He knew its strength, but he also knew its limits, and it could not save him now.

“Don’t.” He tried to pull away, but Cas held fast. “Don’t waste it on me, Cas. You can’t save me.”

“No,” Cas said. “No, I can’t.”

Dean finally flinched, for a second, shock momentarily stronger than the gut churning pull of the Mark, before the hopelessness welled up to choke him. If Cas no longer believed, then there was no hope left. He tried to pull away, but Cas still held him strong, thumbs still circling, Grace still flowing like water finding its way through rock and into the center of Dean’s soul.

“Only you can save yourself, Dean.”

It was what Sammy believed, too, that Dean was the key to his own strength. Only he could hold the Mark at bay; and for the smallest, brightest moment, he had believed it. He had held on to his brother’s faith and believed that he could do it, that he could live with the Mark, tame it, bend it to his will.

Until he had looked into Cain’s eyes just before he killed him, and he knew then that there was no compromise, there was no winning this fight. All roads led to death and ended in blood.

“I can’t, Cas. I thought I could…but I can’t.” 

Dean felt the hot tears on his face, stinging where they tracked over bruised and lacerated flesh, collecting at the corner of his split lip. Cas’ thumb was there, brushing away the tears, smoothing away the pain, healing the flesh even if he could not heal the soul beneath.

“You are not alone, Dean.”

Cas let his fingers sift upward into the short hair at the nape of Dean’s neck, thumb stroking gently at the jaw clenching tight against a rising sob. He gave the smallest tug, and Dean tumbled forward in slow motion until his forehead rested on Cas’ shoulder.

“Cas, it’s eating me alive,” Dean rasped. “And if I don’t feed it, I’m gonna die.” He pressed his face into Cas’ throat. “Chain me up. Take me away from here. Away from Sam—please, don’t let him see—but take me away and chain me up and let me die, Cas. Please…you promised.”

Cas turned his head, enough to press his cheek against Dean’s throbbing temple. He had made promises to Dean before, at his request and in his own heart, and he had kept them all, sometimes to the detriment of them both. This one, though, he did not think he ever intended to keep even from the moment he made it.

“I can’t,” Cas whispered. “There is no God to forgive me—only you—but I cannot do what you ask.”

He expected Dean to pull back, tear away and rage at him and demand he keep his promise. But he didn’t. Instead, Dean’s arms snaked tight around Cas’ back, his face pressed deeper into the damp warmth of Cas’ throat and a sob escaped him.

_And then—then you’d commit the murder you’d never survive._

“He said I would kill you,” Dean rasped. “All of you. Crowley first. Then you. Then…Sam.”

Cas let out an approximation of a dry, mirthless laugh. “Crowley would not be such a loss, I think. Except perhaps if the adage is true, ‘better the devil you know….’”

It was meant to lighten the mood—if such were possible—but Dean’s lips only pressed closer to Cas’ now over-warm skin when he whispered,

“Go.”

Cas frowned in consternation as Dean’s hold on him tightened in direct contradiction to his command.

_The one that would finally turn you into as much of a savage as it did me_

“Go now, Cas. Please,” Dean begged, moving his mouth to Cas’ jaw, smearing his tears against the angel’s stubbled cheek. “You are the last bastion between me and Sam. If you can’t kill me…then protect him. Take him away from me. Keep him safe.”

“Dean…you would never hurt Sam, no matter what Cain said to you.”

“I _have_ hurt him—nearly killed him already.” Dean’s lips were at the corner of Cas’ mouth now, and Cas lifted a hand to cradle Dean’s jaw. “So many times I’ve hurt him, in so many ways. But I won’t be responsible for his death. I won’t finish the circle. I won’t!”

Cas caught Dean’s face in his hands, holding him a hair’s breadth from their lips meeting. He held him there for a long moment, blue glow reflected against green—green, not black—and he couldn’t even admit to himself how glad he was to see it. He shook his head very slowly, pressing Dean back.

“If I take Sam, then I take your true strength. The thing that keeps you fighting, the thing that keeps you human.”

“No. No!” 

Dean sagged, falling away from Cas’ grip and curling into himself. Cas brought his hands to Dean’s trembling shoulders. 

“I am not your sword. I am not your shield. And I am not your savior, Dean. Your strength is inside of you, at the heart of you where the shadow of the Mark falls long but not opaque, and if you look hard enough you will find it. I have faith. Sam has faith.” He leaned in and pressed the gentlest of kisses to the top of Dean’s head. “Find _your_ faith, Dean. It doesn’t have to be in God or religion. Yours never was. Yours is much more fallible but so much more steadfast, and its mirror image has been beside you nearly all your life.”

Cas pressed Dean back into the pillows, and he went unresisting. If he could do nothing else, he could help Dean sleep, help him heal, physically at least.

Dean wasn’t sure where the weight came from, how the sick yearning for violence under his ribs was exchanged for exhaustion that pressed him back into a mercifully quiet void, but he let it take him anyway. Perhaps if he sank with it deep enough down it would swallow him whole. Maybe he wouldn’t be dead, but maybe he could stay lost in the dark long enough that it wouldn’t matter anymore.

_Find your faith…_

Cas’ words found him in his black cocoon and try as he might he could not wipe them from his mind. Sam had challenged him to have faith once, when his life had hung in the balance and Sam was still young and naive enough to believe in miracles. Even ones that turned out to be works of a tamed Reaper.

But what faith did a man like Dean have?

He had countered Sam then, saying he had faith in what was real, what he could see and touch. A lot had transpired since then. Dean’s encyclopedia of what was ‘real’ had grown by leaps and bounds, cataloguing gods of myth, vengeful angels, and a heavenly Father who no longer held court in their particular celestial quadrant. His ‘faith’ was now nearly all inclusive but brought him no solace, no strength, only hopelessness.

And yet, in the deepest part of the dark—if he would not close his eyes to it—there was a glow so soft it cast no shadows but gave off an infusing warmth. It was not made of the kind of fire that burned fierce but rather long and steady—made to hold the dark at bay for the length of a man’s life.

Sammy….

 

_Is he sleeping?_

_Yes._

_How long?_

_A while. He needs it._

_But it won’t solve anything._

_Not yet._

_I should go. Let him rest._

 

No, Sammy. Don’t go…

 

_Lay down, Sam._

_Cas, I…._

_He is on the edge, Sam. Be what he needs. Hold him here with us. Lay down with him._

 

And Dean’s faith laid down with him, stoked the glow from within, and wrapped itself all around him in the form of long limbs and broad palms whose every joint and sinew he had memorized in their formation. It breathed against him in the rhythm his heart had learned to beat with years and years ago, and it found its reflection in that same long, hard body that had been parred by sacrifice and suffering in the name of its own faith. A faith in the shape of Dean, but Dean as he was in the mind of a young boy—invincible, incorruptible, undefeated, and unmarred.

“You still see me that way, Sammy…? Even after everything…” Dean barely whispered, voice hollow in his ears and sluggish with sleep.

There was a long pause and Dean thought maybe he had fallen asleep long ago and only dreamed the warmth, except that it still held him, and it pressed in closer to mouth softly at the nape of his neck.

“Forever, Dean,” Sam finally murmured. “Because I have faith….”

_In you._


End file.
